Abstract
This article explores a new form of exploitation in coastal China. A concept of differential status is set forth to analyze multiple exploitation in the process of rural industrialization. Based on the analytical framework, two emerging social strata can be identified: "status capitalists" and migrant labors. The former, composed of rural cadres, control land rights and are there by able to collect economic rents from foreign capital in exchange of their patronage. The latter, as non-native residents in the village, are underprivileged and severely deprived. The article adopts a research strategy of what Michael Burawoy calls extended case method. A case study was conducted in a village in the Pearl River Delta, Guangdong Province.